Le Corbusier Quotes & Sayings

Architects everywhere have recognized the need of ... a tool which may be put in the hands of creators of form, with the simple aim ... of making the bad difficult and the good easy. — Le Corbusier

When does a building actually become a built? — Le Corbusier

The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society today depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house. — Le Corbusier

Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light: light and shade reveal these forms. — Le Corbusier

The house is a machine for living in. — Le Corbusier

Vehement silhouettes of Manhattan - that vertical city with unimaginable diamonds. — Le Corbusier

Vehicular traffic is completely forbidden in the green strips, where tranquility shall reign and the curse of noise shall not penetrate. — Le Corbusier

The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy. — Le Corbusier

The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach. — Le Corbusier

The truthfulness of materials of constructions, concrete, bricks and stone, shall be maintained in all buildings constructed or to be constructed.The seed of Chandigarh is well sown. It is for the citizens to see that the tree flourishes. — Le Corbusier

Our world, like a charnel-house, is strewn with the detritus of dead epochs. — Le Corbusier

The object of this edict is to enlighten the present and future citizens of Chandigarh about the basic concepts of planning of the city so that they become its guardians and save it from whims of individuals. — Le Corbusier

The home should be the treasure chest of living. — Le Corbusier

Our own epoch is determining, day by day, its own style. Our eyes, unhappily, are unable yet to discern it. — Le Corbusier

The "styles" are a lie. — Le Corbusier

The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light. — Le Corbusier

You know, it is life that is right and the architect who is wrong. — Le Corbusier

The purpose of construction is TO MAKE THINGS HOLD TOGETHER; of architecture TO MOVE US. — Le Corbusier

The mathematical phenomenon always develops out of simple arithmetic, so useful in everyday life, out of numbers, those weapons of the gods: the gods are there, behind the wall, at play with numbers. — Le Corbusier

Cameras get in the way of seeing. — Le Corbusier

To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects. — Le Corbusier

My research is like my feeling, directed towards what is the principle value in the life
the poetry. — Le Corbusier

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe. — Le Corbusier

A house is a machine for living in. Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food, hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion. An armchair is a machine for sitting in and so on. Our — Le Corbusier

A house is a machine for living in. — Le Corbusier

Negro music has touched America because it is the melody of the soul joined with the rhythm of the machine. It is in two part time; tears in the heart; movement of the legs, torso arms and head. The music of the era of construction; innovating. It floods the body and heart; it floods the USA and its floods the world. The jazz is more advanced than the architecture. If architecture were at the point reached by jazz, it would be an incredible spectacle. — Le Corbusier

Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois. — Le Corbusier

Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep. — Le Corbusier

To be modern is not a fashion, it is a state. It is necessary to understand history, and he who understands history knows how to find continuity between that which was, that which is, and that which will be. — Le Corbusier

You don't start a revolution by fighting the state but by presenting the solutions. — Le Corbusier

Genius is personal, decided by fate, but it expresses itself by means of system. There is no work of art without system. — Le Corbusier

The present moment is creative, creating with an unheard-of intensity. — Le Corbusier

You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture. Art enters in. — Le Corbusier

Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city. — Le Corbusier

By law, all buildings should be white. — Le Corbusier

Life never stops. The torment of men will be eternal, unless the function of creating and acting and changing, living intensely through each day, be considered an eternal joy. — Le Corbusier

It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution. — Le Corbusier

I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies. — Le Corbusier

Architecture is the learned game; correct and magnificent of forms assembled in the light — Le Corbusier

Light creates ambience and feel of a place, as well as the expression of a structure. — Le Corbusier